Stories of the death of Transit City have been greatly exaggerated, according to today’s papers. The Star tells us that it looks like Ontario (through Metrolinx, its regional transit body) is pushing hard to make sure that whatever else Rob Ford and other conservatives on council may want, the Eglinton crosstown LRT is being saved. The line is too important to Metrolinx’s plans for the region to let die, so it looks like Toronto will likely get to keep one part of David Miller’s baby.

According to the Star:

Talks between the TTC and the province’s Metrolinx agency are proving fruitful enough that a compromise transit plan for Toronto should be ready by the end of January, both sides say.

And, despite fears that Mayor Rob Ford’s focus on getting more subway into Scarborough will kill light-rail-based Transit City, signs point to a hybrid plan with at least the Eglinton Crosstown LRT surviving, and Toronto paying a premium on the provincially funded expansion to get more of it underground and otherwise away from road traffic.

TTC and Metrolinx staff are communicating “daily,” said Metrolinx chief executive Bruce McCuaig, while the agencies’ leaders, and senior officials from Ford’s office, are to meet again before the end of next week, following a “very constructive” Dec. 17 session.

Given that Toronto has been promised an Eglinton crosstown line since the 1960s or so, it’s hard to complain about this news. So we won’t. Saving Eglinton allows everyone involved to save a little face—the mayor gets an underground route, car traffic won’t be impeded, and Transit City can’t be declared entirely dead—so good on the TTC and Metrolinx for hashing this out.

One cute side note: between the little stub of a subway (12 kilometres added to the Sheppard line) that the mayor wants and the expansive Eglinton line (33 kilometres, 11 kilometres of that underground) that was the core of Miller’s plan, this will still be more like Transit City than Mayor Ford’s Transportation City. Not that we expect either man to appreciate that.

6 thoughts on “Province and TTC might save face, Eglinton LRT”

‘second transit priority is the Eglinton line. This route was second priority in Transit City plan. I would like this line open, as currently scheduled, by 2020.’

I think framing it as Metrolinx getting its way is a little disingenuous. You might want to report on Metrolinx deciding that the airport link will be diesel before their Electrification Study Report is released. (Metrolinx is in final negotiations with a California transit authority to buy Japanese made diesels.)

Gosh, I hope that they don’t design it like the nightmare they made out of
St. Clair Ave. Who ever came up with that idea should be shot! And I mean it!
Not only is the entire street screaming of war on cars, it’s also extremely ugly.

Imagine, eliminating left hand turns bcos of raised concrete, then forcing people to drive way out of their way, into a U-turn lane, forcing them to double back. And if a person can’t find parking, they have to repeat this process on the other side, looping around over and over and over. Talk about creating more pollution and traffic.

I can’t even get near the store I bought a vacuum cleaner from & I cannot carry it so many blocks for service. Now that store has lost my business for life. And I was not even driving in rush hour! No streetcars to be seen, yet cars cannot make use of that designated streetcar lane.

They better pray that there isn’t a fire or need of an ambulance on St. Clair, bcos I just can’t see how anyone will get thru.

Like I said, who ever designed St. Clair Ave., should be blind folded and shot!
I am so fed up with these pandering anti-car planners & politicians. Toronto use to be a great city to drive in…….not any more, thanks to IDIOTS that would never get a job in the private construction design sector.

Who can disagree that St Clair took too long to build and was a construction fiasco? Even some elements of the design could have had obvious improvements. However, I fail to understand Missy’s complaint that St Clair has a raised median. Really? Well, welcome to life in a real city. Try living in a city where ALL left hand turns are prohibited during rush hour (and very well-enforced by floods of oncoming drivers and traffic signals that stop giving the turns across raised medians without transit). If you want to live in cartown, move to Buffalo, Detroit, Edmonton or Los Angeles… or at the very least, just stay put in the exurbs where you belong. Those of us who do walk and take streetcars around town would prefer that you didn’t drive around in circles in our neighbourhoods.

@Keith Aotearoa
How old are you, 10 years old? You must be bcos your comment is that of a child. Are you aware that most of the taxpayers do NOT have 9-5 cushy overpaid government jobs!
They are private sector employees & self employed people that live on the road in order to eek out a living……..IDIOT!!!

It’s quite obvious that YOU do not have any idea of what it takes to earn an above minimum wage living. Walking & TTC’ing…..yeah right. That sure will generate a huge pay cheque, oh, I’m sorry, I now understand your point. You want all of us to just barely make enough monies to get buy. We should all fight for jobs at local variety stores and coffee shops, and live in subsidized housing. GROW UP!

It’s obvious that YOU will never amount to much of a descent paying job in the private sector. Stick to your walks and cruising around with your buddies on the TTC while the rest of us sweat to earn a living.

If you don’t like the way people in the city earn their livings, then YOU move to a small town where you can walk and bike to your hearts content while we support YOU on welfare! And the added bonus is that you will have all the fresh air your little lungs can handle. So what are you waiting for? Move to the country with all those damn health hazard windmills McGuinty is putting up.

@Missy
What, like paying $15-20,000 for a vehicle and $25 for a tank of gas will generate a higher paycheque? St. Clair had a right-of-way from the start, but it was ripped out to save money during the Depression. St. Clair may be 6 lanes wide but motorists still blocked streetcars left and right for over 70 years. Painting diagonal yellow lines over the tracks in the 1970s and implementing new traffic laws didn’t help either. So St. Clair has finally been restored to its original configuration. The tracks were due for replacement anyway. Personally I’m just as pissed off as everyone else at the delays and cost overrun, and i agree they could have prettified the line by using faux-vintage catenary masts, bricks to line the tracks instead of concrete and such but the end result still fulfills its purpose. If you live on St. Clair and drive a car, unless you have 3 or more kids you’re insane. If you don’t accept the fact that streetcars are here to stay, move to Detroit.
Oh, you know how emergency vehicles get through? They use the streetcar lane.